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VGChartz records world wide sales data for all platforms, including both hardware and software.

This generation has been very exciting for video game fans who love to boast about their systems having the best numbers. There’s just something about it that you either get or you don’t. For those of you that don’t get it and say, “who cares who’s number 1, you don’t a get penny from it anyways”…think about the world of sports, “who cares what team wins, because you’re not getting a penny anyways (unless you’re betting, but most don’t). So see, it’s fun to many to compare, brag, or do whatever else you wish about system sales data, etc. The below data comes comes from VGChartz, but the opinions are my own.

Word Wide Lifetime Sales as of July 24th:
1) Nintendo DS = 132.3 million
2) Wii = 72.9 million
3) PlayStation Portable = 59.1 million
4) Xbox 360 = 41.5 million
5) PlayStation 3 = 36.2 million

As you can see here, the DS is pretty much unstoppable and at some point in 2010, might be able to top PlayStation 2 and become the world’s new best selling system of all time. Wii is in second has a great lead over Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and in my opinion, will not be dethroned despite Microsoft’s Kinect and Sony’s PlayStation Move coming out this Fall. PSP remains a good adversary for the DS, becoming the best selling non-Nintendo handheld, ever.

Americas Lifetime sales as of July 24th:
1) Nintendo DS = 48.1 million
2) Wii = 34.2 million
3) Xbox 360 = 24.0 million
4) PlayStation Portable = 19.6 million
5) PlayStation 3 = 14.4 million

Unlike NPD’s data which contains data for just the United States, VGChartz’s “America” data contains Canada and Mexico as well. The DS once again is up top and is nearing an astonishing 50 million owner mark. Wii is 10 million ahead of Xbox 360, which is a good 10 million ahead of PS3. PlayStation Portable once again manages to produce good numbers in comparisson to past non-GameBoys/DS’s.

Japan Lifetime sales as of July 24th:
1) Nintendo DS = 30.9 million
2) PlayStation Portable = 14.9 million
3) Wii = 10.5 million
4) PlayStation 3 = 5.4 million
5) Xbox 360 = 1.4 million

Japan starts of the same as America, with the DS at #1, but over in the east, it’s the PSP that sits comfortably behind it, and it looks like it will stay that way throughout the rest of this generation. Wii and PS3 really are like the DS and PSP, from power comparissons, system appeal to different types of gamers, right down to the ratio of sales between them. Interesting and it’s something I predicted back when each platform saw its initial release. Some else noteable is the ratio of PS3 to Xbox 360, 4:1. PlayStation 2 to Xbox was over 20:1, which shows that 1) Sony lost a lot of console ownership this generation and 2) Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is selling a lot better than its predecessor. Xbox 360 still hasn’t caught up to Nintendo‘s GameCube of last-gen, but being better than your own predecessor is a big step in the right direction.

Europe and Others Lifetime sales as of July 24th:
1) Nintendo DS = 53.3 million
2) Wii = 28.1 million
3) PlayStation Portable = 24.6 million
4) PlayStation 3 = 16.4 million
5) Xbox 360 = 16.2 million

Europe (and other small territories) show the highest support for the Nintendo DS with over 50 million total units sold. Wii and PSP are pretty close to each other, but Wii will stay ahead, as it’s the newer of the two platforms and PSP will likely see a successor before Nintendo unleashes a new console. Finally, PlayStation 3 just recently topped Xbox 360, despite Microsoft’s machine coming out over one year in advance.

Congratulations Nintendo, because the DS will when the dust settles, be not only the best selling platform of this 7th generation, but quite likely the new, best selling video game system world wide, of all time. Probably even with the 3DS coming out in the not-too-distant future, the DSi and DSi XL will continue to do well, just like GameBoy Advance did to the original release of Nintendo DS.

On the other side of the tracking world is NPD whom also today released data today. These are sales figures only for the United States, however. I should also mention that even though NPD is the more well recognized source for US sales tracking (as opposed to VGChartz), they do not account for all sales from every retail outlet. This is why I feel it’s a good idea to include figures from multiple sources, see how they compare, and then hopefully get as close of a figure to reality as possible.

Lifetime-to-date: (sales data for the whole generation thus far)

1) DS – 41,798,158
2) Wii – 29,540,081
3) Xbox 360 – 20,555,886
4) PSP – 17,436,836
5) PlayStation 3 – 12,719,696

Year-to-date: (sales data for the first half of 2010)

1) DS – 3,071,400
2)Wii – 2,405,700
3)Xbox 360 – 1,924,900
4)PlayStation 3 – 1,591,000
5)PSP – 599,300

Year-over-year: (compares each system to how they respectively did in 2009)

1)Xbox 360 +88%
2)PlayStation 3 +85%
3)Wii +17%
4)PSP -26%
5)DS -33%